Even though Ty only had a few hours of sleep he felt energized.
“Ashi, what day is it?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “I do not know.”
“Is it Sunday? Is it too early to call Sam? Oh, I don't care if it is. I need to get things rolling,” he said, as he picked up his cell phone.
“Sam, sorry to wake you. This is Ty.”
“Ty, great! Just the person I wanted to talk to. I was going to call you in just a little while. And you didn't wake me. I've been up for hours.”
“What's going on?”
“Lots of things we have to discuss. These professors are pains in the butt. Each one of them is separately bugging me to tell them how to contact you.”
“You didn't tell them,” Ty asked, alarmed.
“Ty, who are you talking to here?”
Ty let out a deep breath of relief. “Sorry you have to hold them off.”
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s easy to say no to them.”
“Well what do you want to talk about?”
“Can I come down later today?”
“Sounds good, and one more thing. Can you tell me about Fairly’s Dock?”
“Fairly’s Dock is a restaurant. Ty, it’s where your parents met.”
“Okay, thanks, Sam. I never knew that.”
Ty set the phone on the glass table between the two chaises. “I called Sam to...”
“I hear everything, that he is coming at twelve. Maybe Sam does not need a phone. Maybe he can just put his head out the window and yell a little bit more loud.”
“You heard all that? He was kind of loud, wasn't he?” Ty chuckled.
“Why do you ask about the place your parents meet?”
“When we meditated last night my mom told me something I didn't already know. That way I could confirm it and know that I was really talking to her. She told me to ask Sam about Fairly’s Dock.”
****
Sam arrived in his Porsche convertible, ready for the beach, dressed in shorts, tee shirt and sunglasses. He was handsome, with a full head of hair, lean body and deep tan. If he were not carrying a brief case he could be mistaken for a surfer, ready to hit the waves.
“So Fairly’s Dock is where my parents met?” Ty fished, hoping for more information.
Sams face pinched closed, his mouth tightening. “You mean Un-Fairly’s Dock. I was on my third date with Elizabeth when your father walked in. He came over to say hi and ended up charming your mother. She was a philosophy major and he…well he knew so much. He had a way of joking and getting everyone to like him. I thought I was doing pretty good with her up until that night but I really never had a chance.”
“But that was all behind you, right? You stayed good friends with Vincent.”
“Yes, I forgave him,” Sam said. But Ty noticed his face never relaxed as he said this.
Sam opened up a portfolio and spread papers out on the table in front of him.
“First, you have the house until Labor Day. Do you want to stay here? Eventually, people will discover who you are and that you are here. It's not that great of a hiding place.”
“I've been thinking I have to go back. Yes, I'll stay for the next month, until Labor Day, but I'm going back home,” Ty said firmly.
“Your safety...?”
“I will be the one who decides where I will live, not a murderer. I will go home but I'll make sure my house is like a fortress. I'll hire whatever outside security company I need so that Ashi and I are safe.”
Sam leaned back and looked at Ty with an approving smile. “It's a plan. Now I'm assuming you are going to finish your last year of high school, right? And, I don't know a court of law that would let you live by yourself. You are a minor.”
“I can...maybe they would...,” Ty stuttered.
“Maybe I could be your guardian?” Sam suggested gently.
Ty's shoulders sank down and he leaned back in his chair. “Would you do that Sam? I don't know. I think I'll cramp your style if I lived with you. And no offense, but do I really want to live with you?”
“Don't sugar coat it, Ty. I can take it,” Sam said with a smile. “Actually, I don't think there's any need for us to live together. You are seventeen and, do you know how wealthy you are? Vincent left everything to you--no trust fund. 'Everything' is quite a lot. Money can buy a lot of things so you aren't dependent on anyone. You don't need me for financial help.”
“Thanks, it would be great if I could still live in my house.”
“And I could still live in my house separately?” Sam said, grinning. “And what about Ashi?”
They both looked at her, sitting quietly at the table, working on her second bowl of ice cream, trying to follow the conversation.
“What?” she asked, spoon stopping in mid-air. “Cookie Dough. It is my favorite.”
“What about her?” Ty repeated. “She'd like to stay and that's okay with me. In fact, I'd like for her to stay.”
“With you, in your house?”
“Why not?”
“You're going to raise some eyebrows.”
“So what if the neighbors get a little bent out of shape. It's none of their business.”
“What will your school's principal say? She'll certainly find out when both of you have the same address.”
“Hmmm, I can picture Henchel's creating a problem for us. But really, I think she's seen a lot worse living arrangements in her day. I don't know if she'll make it into an issue. If she does, can you take care of it, Sam? You're my guardian,” Ty said, grinning.
“I'll try,” Sam said. “She'll need a student visa. I'll take care of that too.”
Ty smiled reassuringly at Ashi. “It’ll be fine.”
Sam's lips tightened in a thin line as he thought about it. He sighed. “I want to help you stay safe. But you have to live your life too. You can't hide from everyone.”
“No, I can't. That's exactly what I decided just this morning. I am afraid but I can't live my life scared. I'll take precautions.”
They discussed their arrangements a bit more, then Sam began to pack up his brief case.
“By the way, what made you ask about your mom”
“It was just something I was wondering.”
“Your mom was an extraordinary person. So energetic, so alive.”
Ty flashed back to when Vincent told him Sam always was a little in love with her.
“It was hard to believe when she...you know I was there that night. My ex and I were having dinner with your parents. Beautiful night. We were celebrating. Your father's book was going to be published. We came out of the restaurant and stepped off the curb. Elizabeth was just one step ahead of us in the street. The car came racing out of nowhere. None of us saw it coming.” His mood turned morose. “It never stopped, never even slowed down.”
Sam stood up to leave. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about your mom but maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s okay. It’s something Dad never wanted to talk about,” Ty said. “Hey, I need something else. Some files of Dad's. I would need them hand delivered though.”
“Why? Do you think there are any clues in them about your father's...death?”
“No. Another thing I decided was to pick up the work where Dad left off. He would never have rested until he discovered all the answers about the Templars. Now, just this morning, I found out I feel the same way.”
“The bug bit you.”
“I guess it did.”
“I don't know,” Sam said slowly, shaking his head. “There are people or organizations who are shady. They don't want anything uncovered. Digging into this stuff is what got your dad killed. I don't want to see the same thing happen to you.”
“No fear,” Ashi interjected.
“Right,” Ty said, smiling. “If she's not afraid, then I'm not afraid.”
“Listen, if you need anything, call me day or night. I'm here for you. I'll be down here in a flash,” Sam said.
On impulse, Ty hugged him. “Thanks for everything, Sam. Everything. I feel a lot better, knowing you're taking care of things.”
Sam's tone turned sentimental. “No problem. You know the first Mrs. and I didn't have any kids and I don't know if I'll ever meet the second Mrs...”
“You're all I have now.”
Ty felt a surge of affection for Sam but at the same time, was relieved when he watched his Porsche raise a cloud of dust as it roared down the sandy road. He couldn’t wait to start working where his father left off.
He took Vincent's laptop out of its case and set it down on the table.
Ashi set her bowl aside. “What are you doing now?”
“I'm going to hack into Dad's e-mail,” Ty said determinedly. “I’m sure I can do it.” He glanced at Ashi's uncomprehending face. “People send mail on the computer.”
“Yes, I know about e-mail now. Hack into?”
“You need a password to read the mail. I'll have to figure out what Dad's was.”
“But there are so many words.”
He tried time after time, concentrating intently. After ten minutes he stopped, out of ideas.
“Could he maybe use fun name?”
“Nicknames? Good idea.” Again, Ty stared at the screen as he typed. The tapping was broken with his yell. “Got it!”
“What was the password?”
“Mom's name was Elizabeth. Everyone called her that except for Dad. He called her Lizzie. The password is LizzieBaby.” He scrolled through the list quickly. “Wow, there's hundreds here. I'll have to go through each one.”
“Vincent tell me he search and search for something. He tell me it was a treasure but he never tell me what the treasure is.”
Ty realized the whole team viewed Ashi as a good luck charm. She could be a valuable source of information or even the key to finding the treasure. But she knew almost nothing about the team’s research. He looked at Ashi and debated in his mind for a minute.
After a pause, he said, “I think that nobody told you about the search because they thought maybe you wouldn't understand. Your English is so much better though. So, okay, here goes. They had a hereditary priesthood in the Jewish religion. That means that there were twenty-four high priests, and each passed that title onto his son, who then passed it to their sons. It has gone from father to son for thousands of years. Some people think it goes back to Aaron, who was Moses's brother. Vincent found evidence that it went even further back, to ancient Egypt. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she nodded, “except that I do not know who is Moses or Aaron.”
“They are people from the bible, the Old Testament. You know, the Jewish bible, which is also the basis for the Christian religion.”
“I will read the bible tonight. Do we have this book here?”
“I’ll get you one. Anyway, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God and carried them around on two tablets in the Ark of the Covenant.”
“What is that?”
“God told them how to make a gold box, how big to make it and to put something like angels on the top of it. They carried it with them everywhere and kept the actual stone tablets with Ten Commandments engraved in them in the Ark. They even carried it with them into war. It was some sort of super weapon that ensured they couldn't lose in battle. Supposedly it shot out something like lightning.”
“It was passed down to King Solomon, who built the temple, the first temple on a hill in Jerusalem, which we now call the Temple Mount. Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant in the temple and Zadok was the first caretaker of the Ark. Solomon’s temple was destroyed in a war and rebuilt much later by King Herod. Herod’s temple was the second temple and it was built right on top of the ruins of Solomon's temple.”
“When was it built and is it still there?” Ashi asked.
“It was still being built at the time of Jesus. Over thirty years after Jesus died the Jewish people had an uprising against the Romans.” He explained further. “The Romans controlled the area that is now Israel. They were harsh rulers and the Jewish people fought against them. Then in 70 C.E., they were losing the war and knew the Romans were going to win. And, they knew the Romans had a 'scorched earth' policy.”
“What does that mean?”
“As they took city after city, they put every man, woman and child to the sword.” He made a cutting motion across his neck.
“Everyone?” Ashi asked in disbelief.
“Very few escaped. And the people they didn't kill, they took away for a life of slavery.”
“How terrible.”
“When the Romans conquered in 70 C.E., they destroyed the temple and it was never rebuilt. But there is one wall of the temple left and the hill is still there. It's like a huge platform in the middle of the city. Islamic sites are there now, Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.”
“So now, what about the temple?”
“Oh, okay. The Romans were getting closer and closer to Jerusalem. There are miles of tunnels and huge caverns under the Temple Mount. The high priests took all the treasures of the temple and all the sacred scrolls and hid them under the temple. Then they escaped.”
“How do you think they did that?”
Ty shrugged. “There are miles of tunnels. At least one tunnel goes outside the walls of the old city to a water supply. That way, if there were a siege, they wouldn't run out of water. Who knows? A high priest would know if there were other tunnels that led out of Jerusalem.”
“So they ran…”
“Yes. Supposedly, they escaped to various places in Europe. Maybe Africa. They blended in with whatever culture they adopted. Now this is serious business, the hereditary priesthood. It would have been supremely important to pass their knowledge from father to son. The theory is that this knowledge from the high priests has survived intact, in secrecy, for nearly two thousand years. They knew each other and their families intermarried so the line is still in existence today. They are called the Rex Deus. I don't know if they call themselves Rex Deus but that's what Dad called them.”
“What does that mean, Rex Deus? It is not English, is it?”
“No, it's French. It means Kings of God, or something like that.”
“So the treasure was gold and riches, but it was also their scrolls, their knowledge? What do you think the knowledge is?
“Everything that has to do with the priesthood. People think Judaism is a very old religion but many don't realize it has elements of an ancient Egyptian mystery school. So there was secret, esoteric knowledge that dates back to ancient Egypt—information about how to progress spiritually, how to attain enlightenment.”
“But why? Why would anyone want to keep the way to enlightenment a secret?”
Ty shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. So then, in about the year 1100 a group of knights, who were really Rex Deus, traveled back to Jerusalem under the pretense of protecting pilgrims who wanted to visit the Holy Land. They called themselves the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Their fun name was the Knights Templar. They camped out on the Temple Mount and excavated, digging for almost a decade. They must have found something because they packed everything up and went back to Europe. And, there were many changes when they went back--the group was incredibly wealthy. It expanded to thousands and thousands of knights and there were remarkable innovations in architecture.”
“What do you think they found under the Temple Mount?”
“I think they found earthly treasure, like gold. The temple was very wealthy. Maybe they found the Ark of the Covenant, because they kept that in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the temple. And, I think they found spiritual treasure…maybe the path to enlightenment.”
“Hmmm. I have to learn more about this. When you are done with the computer may I...?”
“Yes, of course. You know what else you should read? Vincent's book. Everything is explained in it. We could pick it up at any drugstore.”
Ty turned back to perusing Vincent's e-mails. Very few were relevant but he felt as if he couldn't skip any. There was a strange e-mail, dated two days before Vincent's death. It was from someone calling himself Grand Master. It was a title Freemasons used to designate the leader of a lodge but it was also the name for the supreme leader of the Knights Templar. It read:
I am checking something out here that you might be extremely interested in. Are you in?
Ty thought, What do I have to lose? I'm never going to find out this information or who Grand Master is if I don't...
He clicked “reply” and typed:
I'm in. Sorry it took so long for me to write back.
Ty hit “send” without signing who it was from.
He searched through older e-mails and found other messages from Grand Master. It seemed he and Vincent regularly wrote back and forth, discussing ideas. Why would Dad discuss ideas with anyone who wasn't on the team? This guy appears to have access to all kinds of resources, libraries, important people. I wonder who he is. Maybe Vincent kept in contact because he has seriously important information available.
“I just thought of something,” Ty said.
Ashi sat across from him at the table, now poring over her English books. She looked up.
“I think there was someone else involved in the search who was not on the team.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It was someone or some group that was powerful, someone who could get things done. I'm thinking back to when this person or group got a plane chartered on short notice. They helped him with other things too...visas...hmm.” Ty was lost in his thoughts. “I knew this before but never thought about it very much.” He turned the computer so she could see it. “This guy made me think of it.”
Ashi read the e-mail. “Do you think this is the person who help Vincent?”
“No...I don't know...He just reminded me that there was someone else involved who wasn't on the team. Dad kind of kept it secret too, even from me. It could be someone totally different from Grand Master.”
Ashi nodded. “Do you write e-mail to this person?”
“Yes. Maybe if I keep in contact with him we'll find out more. I sure wish I had his brown, leather notebook. All his ideas were in that one notebook.”
Ty continued to search his father's computer, looking at e-mails and the history of his searches, bookmarking web pages, until late that night, only taking a break for some pizza. Then he turned the computer over to Ashi and went to bed. He got up in the middle of the night for some water and saw a crack of light from under her door.
He woke up early the next morning, wanting to get to work. He walked out onto the deck and Ashi was sitting on the chaise with her eyes closed. Ty studied her face. She surprised him when she opened her eyes.
“You're awake! I thought you might be sleeping in today because I saw your light on late last night. You must be tired.”
“I am awake and no, I am not tired. I do not believe my body must follow all the rules. These rules that people think the body must follow, when to get hungry and when to get tired.”
Even though Ty originally wanted to get right to work, he was intrigued. “Then you were meditating? You meditate a lot.”
“Yes, your mind reach a state when it do not need to meditate any more. Your whole way of being is a state of meditation. But, I still like to. It help my mind be clear.”
Ty sat next to her. “Tell me what you are doing when you meditate.”
“There are many ways to meditate. Some people think on one thing deeply like a flower or a holy saying. Another way to watch breath go in and out. Some people clear mind from all thoughts. I watch my thoughts. That was most easy way for me when I a little girl. I watch them all day long.”
“Watch thoughts?”
“Yes, you do not judge it is a good thought or it is a bad thought. Just be aware of thought when it happen and what it is. Soon you see your mind have two parts, the part that think the thoughts and the part that watch the mind and wait for it to think a thought.”
“That doesn't seem too hard.”
“Maybe it is a little hard when you first do it,” Ashi giggled. “Your mind is like the sky. Your thoughts are like the clouds that move across the sky. People think they are the clouds, that they are their thoughts, what they think and feel. Then they find out they are really the sky, the part that watches the clouds move across it.”
“I'm going to try it.”
Ty leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. After about five minutes he opened them again.
“I think I watched my thoughts for about ten seconds. Then I don't remember anything else until I just realized I wasn't watching my thoughts anymore.” He frowned. “I'm going to have to work on this.” He closed his eyes again and after a minute they flipped open again. “This is not so easy. Why do you do this again?”
“Your mind is talking and talking all the time. If you are listening to it all the time you can not hear what your true self say. All the kinds of meditation, they make your mind silent, make the talk stop, so you can really hear, really be. This kind of meditation I tell you, watch the thoughts, you find you are not the clouds. You are the sky. You can be the sky.”
“Okay.” Ty closed his eyes again. “Be the sky, be the sky. I have to call Jenna…let her know I’m coming back.”
“Is this how you be the sky?” Ashi asked with mock sterness. “I think she will like that very much.”
Ashi sat upright and cross-legged on her usual chaise, facing the ocean, meditating. Ty sat next to her, imitating her position but not her state of mind. He struggled to keep his mind focused and found that several minutes could pass before he was even aware he was no longer focused.
Ashi finally opened her eyes. “It is okay, Ty. With practice you get better and better at it.”
“How did you know what I was thinking? Did you read my mind?”
Ashi rolled her eyes. “No. I do not think your face can look any more...mad about meditating... than it looks right now.”
“Well, it is frustrating. I feel like an idiot. Are you sure I'm doing this right?” Ty asked, his voice tinged with annoyance.
“Be patient with Ty,” Ashi counseled gently. “Pretend you are teaching your best friend how to meditate. If he could not do it well, you would not get mad at your best friend and call him an idiot, would you?”
“No, I guess not,” Ty said. “but I can’t do this anymore. I have to call Jenna” Ty said, jumping to his feet.
Jenna was bubbling with happiness to hear from him. “Ty, it's so great to hear your voice,” she said breathlessly. “I don't think I've heard it in two weeks.”
“Yes, it's great to hear yours too,” he said. At first the sentiment felt forced, as if he needed to repeat it back to be polite, but as the conversation went on he found it truly was nice to hear her voice.
They talked mostly about Jenna's summer and how she was mostly spending it babysitting for her brothers, how she brought them to the town pool often and ran into lots of kids from the high school. She gave Ty the rundown about who was doing what.
“What about you? Are you getting bored?”
“Not really. I can't really get tired of the beach.”
“I would love to see you sometime,” Jenna said with a question in her voice.
“That's kind of why I'm calling. I’m coming home at the end of the summer.”